In the Middle Ages, people believed that their lives were affected by "good spirits" and "bad spirits." With the advent of the Renaissance and then the scientific revolution, people gave up such folly. Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh."
No, we"re not in the Middle Ages anymore, but neither did "bad spirits" go away just because we stopped believing in them. "Bad spirits" are fear-based thought forms, and they are not merely personal. They are collective, as well. In fact, because on a spiritual level all minds are joined, all thought-forms are on some level collective. " external remedy does not ultimately solve a problem, unless root thinking that produced the problem is transformed within the mind. As long as anyone still holds a racist thought, slavery isn"t really over. As long as anyone still feels that one group of people is "better" than any other, then war will not be over. As long as anyone thinks that someone else"s being empowered disempowers them, then injustice will not disappear from the earth".
Fear-based archetypes live beyond time or place. They inhabit the eternal regions of the subconscious mind. Scientific or social or political progress can temporarily render them ineffective, but cannot rout them out. Thoughts of fear merely mutate when chased, taking different forms in different times and places. Reason cannot exorcise what is essentially a spiritual darkness. Fear grows like an uncontrollable fungus on the soulless layers of the modern mind, leaving us with an insatiable appetite for a stew of externals that cannot feed us"It is spiritual, not psychological disease, that threatens to destroy us. In the words of Carl Jung, "Only spirit can cure spirit."
Our disease is not that fifty thousand people on earth are dying of hunger each day, while there is no dearth of food on the planet; our disease is that we are willing to tolerate it. Our disease is not that millions of American children are living lives of hardship and despair as deep as that of any Third World country, while politicians of both parties appear on political talk shows every night and don"t feel the need to mention it; our disease is that they can get away with this".
Only a spiritual awakening can heal us. Our national conscience is impacted now, held as in a cave, waiting for resurrection and release. "Bad spirits" are floating around us, old, old archetypes that appear and reappear throughout human history, mocking and destroying the most evolved human dreams".
Only a spiritual awakening can heal us.
"Have Faith." A simple phrase. A hope filled response. A reminder that there's more than just you in the energy of the Universe.
"Have Faith." A facile reply. A shedding of responsibility—putting off the hard place of being. A reminder that sometimes what you are sharing is too hard for the listener to hear.
"Have Faith." A cheer leading comment. A summoning of strength. A reminder that you are capable of and in your life.
"Have Faith." An admonishment. A deflection into blame. A reminder that sometimes others forget that what you are experiencing could happen to them and they find you at fault rather than in struggle.
"Have Faith." An embrace. An encouragement for humility. A reminder that we cannot control it all, that letting go can heal.
What a potent phrase: "have faith." One that can soothe the hurting soul or send us into isolation. One that can provide strength we could not find or devastate our tender yearning. Have faith in what, for whom, what for? What does that mean? How is that relevant? What is that confidence, that calm you speak of, that stock phrase that's supposed to make me feel better?
Faith is given many definitions and touches us each in uniquely personal ways. It's what compels us to trust in the next moment, to find meaning in our random lives, to believe in our relationship to life. Faith is what cannot be proved but remains real to us. Faith is what can be believed beyond what is regarded as physical fact. Faith is a sense of truth that is resilient to argument. It is deep and abiding confidence.
"The question concerning faith is not, 'Shall I be a (person) of faith'" wrote James Luther Adams, 20th century Unitarian theologian, "The proper question is, rather, 'Which faith is mine?' ... for, whether a person craves prestige, wealth, security, or amusement, whether (one) lives for country, for science, for god or for plunder, she knows that she has faith, he shows that he has confidence in something." (The Epic of Unitarianism, by David Parke, p.149)
"A person will worship something," commented Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson some 100 years before Adams, "have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret," he said, "but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character." (Singing the Living Tradition #563)
And there's a lot of worshipping going on these days ... a lot of claims of faith. More and more, the question "which faith is mine?" has an edge to it... "which faith is mine, over and above all other faiths... which faith will cure all ills... which faith will run the world?"
To dwell in the world of faith is to dwell in vulnerability. When there is vulnerability, there is fear; and when there is fear, there is knowledge of power. How will I survive this world? Where is my comfort? Where does my strength come from? Am I protected? What can I trust? Why must I die?
The questions of faith can pierce through our arranged lives and bring us to a place of mystery, a place where we may feel unsteady, a place where we may feel exhilarated and ready to welcome the new, a place of struggle, or a place of surety.
It all depends on what is in command. What guides our understandings? What nourishes our spirit? What gains our trust?
One of the fundamental fears which has compelled the forming of faith since our beginnings on this earth is the fear of death. In fact, you can trace most of our behavior, certainly our controlling behavior to this fundamental fear. Fear of death encompasses fear of change, fear of loss, and fear of disappearing, of irrelevance.
When you attach this fear to a form of faith, a common reaction is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism in religion is the grasping of form, attempting to establish a strict reading of a faith so that it never changes. Fundamentalism is created out of a fear that all will be lost without the control of a tradition whose enemies are any person or faith system in opposition to it.
There is no room for error in fundamentalism, no possibility of growth, except in adherence. It is what it is, regardless of creativity and mystery and ambiguity and discovery and evolution. It is guaranteed to last just as it is, so that it can be counted on, no matter how much sense it makes or how much it resonates with reality. It is a truth claim that does not look for its echo in daily life. It is a truth claim that deems daily life in one sense, irrelevant, for what was established "then" is all that truly matters.
I've shared this adage before: God and the devil are walking on the beach. A human is playing in front of them, skipping along the edge of the water. God says to the devil, "I'm going to toss the human a bit of Truth." The human jumps up and catches it. "No matter," says the devil, "I'll just tempt the human to organize it."
"To reduce reality to the outward, or to the literal, or to the most external," states Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "is to destroy its depth and its height." (Parabola, winter 2005, "The Sacred World of the Other")
What fundamentalism does to the faith it champions is diminish the spiritual power of its own tradition; it attempts to quantify what cannot be fully counted; it tries to box in what transcends all boundaries; it claims an end to that which is eternal.
Yes, fundamentalist ideology provides clear sign posts for the journey, ignoring all the traffic around it, but, ironically the road leads to a dead end. It cannot find its way through the multiplicity of existence, it follows a chartered course leading to its own conclusion, by-passing mystical surprise, graceful encounters, interdependent awareness, and life changing epiphanies. If these would come across a fundamentalist's path, they would be considered distractions that need to be ignored, for anything "by the book" is untried... untested... unacceptable.
So why is this outlook so popular today? Why is fundamentalism on the rise all over the world? Simply this: fear. Fear and despair in the depth of fear. Fundamentalism seeks to hold onto something, as if it is the drift wood that will save us in the sea of uncertainty. It is appealing in its simplicity. It is comforting in its surety. It is definite about death: how to ennoble it so that this life and all its challenges become secondary to what comes afterwards.
With the expansion of world community comes a multiplicity that can challenge one's very core. With the increased technology and ability to destroy life comes increased responsibility to that life. With the ever bolder cries for freedom comes the disintegration of centralized control.
Dr. Nesr, President of the Foundation for Traditional Studies and Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, offers that the Christian fundamentalism we see today had its origins in the 19th and 20th century as a reaction to the fundamentalism of modernism. Suddenly the world of the rational was the acceptable world and all else was considered unintelligent, unworthy of attention.
When Western Europe launched itself into the Industrial Era and the age of reason became paramount, religious ideation took a back seat. Soon mysticism faded to the background. Because it was lacking in empirical reality, "proveable" reality, it was dismissed as unreal. Fundamentalists took hold of the forms and instruments—the basics available within their tradition—and clung to the externals—Biblical literalism, strict dogma, sworn enemies. This way the religion and the way to heaven would be identifiable in any circumstance, and death, both of the tradition and of the follower would be transcended. According to fundamentalists, one's death is taken care of as long as you live your life in a proscribed way. Even suicide, if defending the tradition, can be ennobled rather than shunned, for it is believed that such action gives over one's life to a higher cause.
The rise in fundamentalism these days is in response to a similar state of affairs. The world is opening up, once again, to new information and insisting on itself as a superior, consciously evolved vision—that of world community and the many voices, the many paths to Divine knowing.
There is a saying, Tara Brach reminds us, "the world is divided between the people who think they are right"—that's the end of the saying.
The challenge of this day is for people to find that their worldview is merely a part of a larger world that somehow encompasses us all. This is a very unsettling perspective for those who want to be sure, who want to be right, who want to know what to do and how to do it. In short, this is a very unsettling perspective for most of us....
But the understanding of our lives as intermingling within a larger unity that no one of us can fully understand needs to gain strength, for the fundamentalist tendency to claim an end to knowledge is further and further dividing this world, claiming ownership of our reality and perhaps its demise.
There is a grave need for the courage of the unknown, the strength of the open heart and mind and the compassion of embracing difference. In short, there is a grave need for Unitarian Universalism to share its good news and claim its heritage of summoning the courage to accept difference, champion freedom and ennoble inner truth that resonates in this great and worthy world.
When Christian fundamentalism and its voice of doom was on the rise in the 19th century in this country, Universalism provided a counter voice of hope.
In the words of Universalist Olympia Brown, ordained in 1850:
"We can never make the world safe by fighting. Every nation must learn that the people of all nations are children of God, and must share the wealth of the world."
"You may say this is impractible," she continues, "far away, can never be accomplished, but it is the work we are appointed to do. Sometime, somehow, somewhere, we must ever teach this great lesson." (Hymnal #578) When strict adherence to dogma was claimed, Unitarianism countered with honoring the living tradition, giving text and form a flow that finds itself rediscovered in the hearts of its readers;
The Rev. William Ellery Channing preached this is 1819:
"Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books.... With these views of the Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually; to compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature of the subject, and the aim of the writer, his true meaning; and, in general, to make use of what is known for explaining what is difficult, and for discovering new truths..." (The Epic of Unitarianism, David Parke, p. 89)
The level of violence, alienation, demonizing and grand standing amongst religious leaders, politicians and statesmen these days is frightening. Many of us feel at a loss for what to do, how to stem the tide of belligerence and divisiveness.
Our first task, of course, is to find what fundamentalism is within us. Where do I cling to ideas? When do I feel threatened if someone disagrees with me? What fear am I trying to cure through control?
Next is to see what endangers us, what we cannot allow to infect us. When do I let my anger guide my actions? When do I see the other as alien, completely separate from me? What teachings, accusations, behaviors of others do I allow into my psyche? When do I look the other way? When do I put my health, my wholeness aside?
And then we need to come to embrace our faith within. What do I have confidence in? Where can I find and feel that spiritual nourishment which gives me strength? Have I given myself the time and space to glimpse a sense of home in the Universe?
As Unitarian Universalists we have a job to do. It's not going to help if we just like the way we sound to each other. We have a responsibility to share our understanding of the glory of diversity and the interdependent web of all existence. We have a moral imperative to encourage deeper and wider love through responsibility and celebration of life. We have a gift to share, an abundance of spirit to let flow, a summoning of beauty to inspire so that the living tradition of a religion becomes its reason to be and texts of wisdom and wonder can be respected for its guidance, not enslaved in literalism.
We can unravel fear by our love. We can loosen the bonds of dogma by our welcome of experience. We can lift the hopes toward freedom by claiming it in the way we live.
Your lives are praises for living—each and every one of you. Let it add more joy and confidence to this troubled world.
So may it be. Amen.
Copyright © 2006 Lisa G. Ward. All Rights Reserved.